What exactly does an "inbetween" artist do?

[AndyThe94]

I was watching an animated short "Heart" by Erick Oh, and in the credits I saw "Inbetween Artists" and a whole list of names. Yet, I know Erick Oh does the main drawings.

I'm wondering what the whole animation process is, involving inbetweening. At first, I imagine that the "main guy" (Erick Oh in this case) does the basic animation drawings--it looks animated, but not completely smooth yet. Then once that's finished, the inbetween artists (who are different people) draw in the inbetween frames to make everything look smoother? But wouldn't the whole animation look disconnected as far as drawing style? My question is, how does the process go? Does each inbetween artist just have to master imitating Erick Oh's drawing style?

I ask this because I'm working on an animation myself, and I might ask a friend to help me with the inbetweening, but don't know if my finished product will look like one, unified drawing style... since multiple people are drawing.

[schwarzgrau]

Ya, Erick does the Key-Drawings, where a movement change directions or come to a stop and gives the inbetweener a chart where they have to put the inbetweens. They need to copy his style then. But honestly I only know it from books, since I never worked as inbetween artist or had the privilege to have someone do the inbetweens for me, but I guess they have to draw as good as you to satisfyingly copy your style. I also guess one single person should then do the cleanup at least for one shot, to let it look seamlessly.

[D.T. Nethery]

At the rough stage the animator might do all the rough inbetweens or if he was lucky enough to have an assistant then the assistant would fill in the rough inbetweens. In some cases for very slow-moving , closely spaced action they might not do all the inbetweens in rough , leaving it On 4's or On 6's , with charts indicating where the inbetweens would go later during the clean-up process. In the Disney system , usually the entire scene would be rough inbetweened before going through clean-up where there was hierarchy starting with KEY clean-up artists (who would clean-up the final key or extreme drawings ) , Breakdown artists who would work between the keys , doing the final clean-up breakdown drawings ("breakdown" = the main inbetween , usually the more difficult drawings , not just a "straight-in-the-middle" inbetween) , and Inbetweeners would do the remaining inbetween drawings.

(click image to see it larger)



Inbetweening Videos Playlist

Ten Steps to a Perfect Inbetween -
http://www.animationmeat.com/pdf/featur ... 0Steps.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

But wouldn't the whole animation look disconnected as far as drawing style? My question is, how does the process go? Does each inbetween artist just have to master imitating Erick Oh's drawing style?

Yes, one of the skill sets an inbetweener must have is the ability to precisely match the line style set by the animator or the key clean-up artist so the work looks seamless ,as if it were drawn all by one person .


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[meslin]

Hello AndyThe94,

I think David Nethery perfectly explained the process of what an in-betweener does, but I should note that Erick's film didn't really have in-betweeners, but rather "Clean Up Artists." He did almost all of the timing, and our job was just to do clean ink drawings and paint fills. But sometimes the roughs were very gestural so there was plenty of in-between timing to do on limbs and such. Erick has unbelievable energy for communication and gave detailed feedback to all of the assisting artists.

Erick controlled the line quality by making a .tvpx brush panel and also only hiring artists who he thought could draw the characters on model. He gave artists less "consequential" test scenes as auditions, I think.
An important tip would be for you to know which scenes are most important for moving the story forward, and try to do those scenes yourself. And don't change animators in the middle of a sensitive sequence.

Also, watch this video by Toniko Pantoja for more detail on in-betweening!

[AndyThe94]

Holy cow, thank you all so much for such thorough explanations. This was incredibly helpful. Thank you thank you.

Meslin, were you a part of the making of that animation?! That's amazing!

[meslin]

Yeah, watch the credits
Erick was my classmate at UCLA, and we worked together on a few things.
If I recall correctly,I introduced him to TVPaint.
Best (and fastest) animator I've ever worked with, by far. Ego-crushingly talented.